Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / MAGA Republicans Targeted by the FBI, Crime In America Effecting Democrats, plus Questions on the Minds of Young Voters the Week In Review
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome.
- 0:01Speaker 2: It is a Verdict with Ted Cruz Weekend Review. Ben
- 0:04Speaker 2: Ferguson with you. And these are the big stories that
- 0:07Speaker 2: you may have missed that we talked about this week.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Number one the big story of the week, Donald Trump
- 0:13Speaker 2: voters and those that consider themselves MAGA supporters are now
- 0:18Speaker 2: going to be targeted by the FBI in a shocking
- 0:22Speaker 2: new minimum. The federal government believes that the quote threat
- 0:25Speaker 2: of violence and major civil disturbances from MAGA supporters is
- 0:31Speaker 2: so great that they have created a new category of
- 0:34Speaker 2: extremists that it seeks to quote track and counter. Who
- 0:39Speaker 2: are they tracking?
- 0:40Speaker 3: You?
- 0:41Speaker 2: And Donald Trump's army of MAGA followers. Number two Crime
- 0:46Speaker 2: in America out of control, but this time it's affecting Democrats,
- 0:50Speaker 2: including one congressman that was carjacked. And finally, we had
- 0:56Speaker 2: a very interesting Q and a Senator Ted Cruz at
- 0:59Speaker 2: the Texas Youth Summit. I want you to hear some
- 1:02Speaker 2: of the brilliant questions that were asked of the senator.
- 1:05Speaker 2: It is the Weekend Review with Ted Cruz and it
- 1:08Speaker 2: starts right now. There is now intel that shows that
- 1:14Speaker 2: MAGA Republicans, Donald Trump's supporters will be targeted by the FBI.
- 1:21Speaker 2: As the twenty twenty four election nears, Newsweek is now
- 1:26Speaker 2: reporting on this and Biden to go back tweeted in
- 1:29Speaker 2: September of last year quote Donald Trump and maga Republicans
- 1:33Speaker 2: are a threat to the very soul of this country.
- 1:36Speaker 2: The very soul of this country, Chris. FBI director chrispher
- 1:41Speaker 2: Ray and sworn testimony said it's not just Trump supporters.
- 1:45Speaker 2: Early this year, he said, House Republicans say the FBI
- 1:47Speaker 2: document that they've obtained proved that several field offices contributed
- 1:51Speaker 2: to a memo that targeted traditional Catholics. We talked about
- 1:55Speaker 2: this extensively on this show as potential tarists and tried
- 1:59Speaker 2: to turn and parishioners on their fellow church goers. So,
- 2:04Speaker 2: if you just look at the last year, parents who
- 2:07Speaker 2: show up at school board meetings are to be labeled
- 2:10Speaker 2: domestic terrorists. The FBI was spending time recruiting people in
- 2:15Speaker 2: the Catholic church to spy on their friends and family.
- 2:19Speaker 2: And now we are being told that heading into the
- 2:22Speaker 2: twenty twenty four election, that if you are a Donald
- 2:25Speaker 2: Trump follower supporter, that you may be now monitored or
- 2:31Speaker 2: targeted by the FBI.
- 2:35Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right, and part of the challenge s
- 2:39Speaker 3: heare like, for example, you focused on the FBI's targeting
- 2:43Speaker 3: of traditional Catholics, which they rightly got enormous grief because
- 2:47Speaker 3: they were talking about infiltrating Catholic churches and trying to
- 2:50Speaker 3: get priests to spy on their parishioners and become FBI
- 2:55Speaker 3: informants to inform on the members of their church. So
- 3:00Speaker 3: initially the FBI said, oh, that was a rogue office
- 3:03Speaker 3: down in Richmond, Virginia, it's not a broader problem.
- 3:06Speaker 4: Now that they've admitted that it.
- 3:08Speaker 3: Was multiple offices that participated in that this was a
- 3:11Speaker 3: much broader effort to target traditional Catholics. And the same
- 3:18Speaker 3: is true with the targeting of Donald Trump's supporters. You know,
- 3:23Speaker 3: even this language, so you can tell someone did a
- 3:26Speaker 3: focus group on the Democrat side and they discovered the
- 3:30Speaker 3: phrase maga Republican. They're going to brand that that like
- 3:33Speaker 3: magi by the way, Maga republican, and their definition they
- 3:36Speaker 3: mean everybody. They literally mean every Republican is a maga Republican.
- 3:41Speaker 3: And then they just think the word maga is really
- 3:43Speaker 3: scary and they claim that if you are a maga
- 3:48Speaker 3: Republican is defined as a Republican who voted for Donald Trump.
- 3:52Speaker 3: So you know, seventy five to eighty million Americans are defined,
- 3:56Speaker 3: according to this White House potential terrorists as threats to democracy.
- 4:04Speaker 4: And this is how Democrats have become radicalized.
- 4:07Speaker 3: They now say, if you dare vote against Democrats, you
- 4:12Speaker 3: are a threat to democracy. Just understand, every time Democrats
- 4:18Speaker 3: use the word democracy, what they mean is me, I'm
- 4:22Speaker 3: a Democrat. I want to get elected, and anything that
- 4:25Speaker 3: stands in my way is a quote threat to democracy.
- 4:30Speaker 3: They don't actually want that. They don't actually want real
- 4:36Speaker 3: democracy if it elects Republicans. What they want is Democrats
- 4:40Speaker 3: to be in power forever. And by the way, this
- 4:43Speaker 3: is intimately connected to their lawlessness on the southern border,
- 4:46Speaker 3: because the reason they've allowed seven point six million illegal
- 4:49Speaker 3: immigrants into the country is because they want to subvert
- 4:52Speaker 3: democracy by getting them to vote for Democrats and keep
- 4:56Speaker 3: Democrats in power.
- 4:58Speaker 2: Sinri I also think we should bring up in the
- 5:00Speaker 2: Newsweek article it says that if you voted for Donald Trump,
- 5:03Speaker 2: the government will track you.
- 5:07Speaker 3: Well, that's right, and in June of this year, the
- 5:11Speaker 3: FBI and the Department of Homeland Security filed a joint
- 5:16Speaker 3: report with Congress, and what they say in that joint
- 5:20Speaker 3: report is they say, quote threats from domestic violent extremists
- 5:27Speaker 3: have increased in the last two years, and any further
- 5:30Speaker 3: increases in threats likely will correspond to potential flash points
- 5:35Speaker 3: such as high profile elections and campaigns or contentious current events.
- 5:42Speaker 3: So they're saying terrorists are associated with high profile elections.
- 5:48Speaker 3: And just to make sure there's no ambiguity that they're
- 5:51Speaker 3: not talking about Antifa, they're not talking about left wing terrorists.
- 5:54Speaker 3: They are focused on Republicans. Here's what the report concludes.
- 6:00Speaker 3: Quote socio political developments such as narratives of fraud in
- 6:07Speaker 3: the recent general election, conditions related to the COVID nineteen pandemic,
- 6:14Speaker 3: and conspiracy theories promoting violence will almost certainly spur some
- 6:20Speaker 3: domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence. Now, everything
- 6:26Speaker 3: they list there they associate with Republicans. And notice they
- 6:30Speaker 3: say COVID. So if you don't like lockdowns, you're a terrorist.
- 6:34Speaker 3: If you don't like forced maskings, you're a terrorist. If
- 6:37Speaker 3: you don't like vaccine mandates, you're a terrorist. If you're
- 6:40Speaker 3: concerned about the potential health negative effects of forced vaccines
- 6:45Speaker 3: of the COVID vaccines. You're a terrorist. That is the narrative.
- 6:49Speaker 3: Anyone that disagrees with the regime they now define as
- 6:54Speaker 3: a violent extremist, And amazingly enough, left wing violence in
- 6:59Speaker 3: their narrative doesn't exist. So black lives matter, not a
- 7:03Speaker 3: word about that. Antifa, not a word about them, the
- 7:08Speaker 3: efforts targeting. Look, we've got now violent riots that are
- 7:13Speaker 3: playing out right now in cities like Philadelphia, where they're
- 7:17Speaker 3: ransacking and looting stores, where they're attacking police officers. That
- 7:21Speaker 3: is not violent extremism. If you're a leftist, that's okay,
- 7:26Speaker 3: that's that's wonderful. That is beautiful social protest to burn
- 7:31Speaker 3: American cities. But yet, if if you're if you don't
- 7:35Speaker 3: want to see America locked down again on COVID, clearly
- 7:39Speaker 3: you're a terrorist.
- 7:40Speaker 2: Final question to you, I think we should give it
- 7:42Speaker 2: A quick update on that speakership and the House vote
- 7:47Speaker 2: kind of risen to the top at this point. He
- 7:49Speaker 2: said he's willing to be the speaker that would be.
- 7:53Speaker 2: And if you missed our interview with him, a two
- 7:55Speaker 2: part series on the Hunter Byden Investigation, go back and
- 7:58Speaker 2: listen to it. He's phenomenal on this issue. Talk about
- 8:02Speaker 2: the timeline now of when we expect the House side
- 8:06Speaker 2: to take this up, of deciding again who's going to
- 8:08Speaker 2: be the speaker.
- 8:09Speaker 3: Well, my understanding is the House is going to vote
- 8:12Speaker 3: on speaker next week and then I expect it to
- 8:15Speaker 3: be a roller coaster ride.
- 8:17Speaker 4: I mean, you remember back in January we had a roller.
- 8:19Speaker 3: Coaster ride of over a dozen different ballots before Kevin
- 8:24Speaker 3: McCarthy was elected Speaker, and it was very narrow. It
- 8:28Speaker 3: may well be a similar battle at this point. There
- 8:31Speaker 3: are several contenders that are talking about running. Two have
- 8:35Speaker 3: announced publicly. One is Steve Scalise. Steve Scalise is the
- 8:41Speaker 3: Majority leader, was Kevin McCarthy's number two. Steve is generally
- 8:46Speaker 3: perceived to be more conservative than McCarthy, and so Steve
- 8:51Speaker 3: is running as the candidate that can unify both the
- 8:56Speaker 3: moderates in the Republican Conference and all so some of
- 9:00Speaker 3: the conservatives. A second candidate who's running, as you noted
- 9:04Speaker 3: as Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan was one of the original
- 9:08Speaker 3: founders of the Freedom Caucus. He is a prominent and
- 9:11Speaker 3: well known conservative. The media is deeply skeptical of Jim Jordan,
- 9:16Speaker 3: and they say he's too conservative to get elected and
- 9:18Speaker 3: the moderates will never support him.
- 9:20Speaker 4: I don't know if that's true or not.
- 9:22Speaker 3: There is also discussion that Kevin Hearn, who is a
- 9:27Speaker 3: Republican from Oklahoma, that he may run.
- 9:30Speaker 4: Kevin is a good man.
- 9:31Speaker 3: It's not clear if he will, although there have been
- 9:34Speaker 3: reports that he's telling other Republicans he's looking at the
- 9:37Speaker 3: race seriously. And then there's been some chatter that Chip
- 9:41Speaker 3: Roy might run. I don't know if Chip will run
- 9:43Speaker 3: or not. At this point, neither Kevin nor Chip are
- 9:47Speaker 3: in the race, but next week they might both be
- 9:49Speaker 3: in the race, and and I don't know if yet
- 9:53Speaker 3: another Republican might jump in. So I think it will
- 9:55Speaker 3: be vigorously contested. I'm sure there's there is. There's a
- 10:00Speaker 3: lot of horse trading going on right now. There's a
- 10:02Speaker 3: lot of negotiations going on right now. What's striking is
- 10:07Speaker 3: that each of the potential candidates went and met with
- 10:10Speaker 3: the Texas delegation. The reason they met with the Texas
- 10:12Speaker 3: delegation is Texas is the largest contingent of House Republicans,
- 10:17Speaker 3: and so you've got the biggest block of votes, Particularly
- 10:20Speaker 3: if the Texas delegation votes together. It's not clear that
- 10:23Speaker 3: they will, but they might, and so at this point
- 10:27Speaker 3: I don't know what will happen. My intention is to
- 10:29Speaker 3: stay out of it and to leave leadership elections to
- 10:33Speaker 3: House Republicans.
- 10:35Speaker 4: But the answer as to who comes.
- 10:37Speaker 3: Out of it is going to matter quite a bit,
- 10:39Speaker 3: and so we will certainly watch with interest and continue
- 10:44Speaker 3: to provide the best analysis we can.
- 10:46Speaker 2: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
- 10:49Speaker 2: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
- 10:51Speaker 2: from earlier this week.
- 10:53Speaker 1: Now onto story number.
- 10:54Speaker 2: Two, I want to move to something else that obviously
- 10:57Speaker 2: got pushed back in the headlines, but it still is important.
- 11:00Speaker 2: The crime wave that we're seeing is not just sweeping
- 11:04Speaker 2: the nation, but now it's affecting democratic leaders and leaders
- 11:09Speaker 2: in the liberal movement like we haven't seen before, and
- 11:12Speaker 2: it's happening way more often. I'll give you an example.
- 11:14Speaker 2: You have a Democratic representative, Henry Queller, who was carjacked
- 11:19Speaker 2: at gunpoint in DC. This comes as in just the past,
- 11:24Speaker 2: well it was in a twenty four hour period. You
- 11:26Speaker 2: had a liberal gay reporter that was shot and killed
- 11:29Speaker 2: in his home in Philly. You had a far left
- 11:32Speaker 2: activist that was stabbed to death by a deranged stranger
- 11:35Speaker 2: in Brooklyn in front of his girlfriend. You had this
- 11:38Speaker 2: Democratic congressman who was carjacked at gunpoint in DC by
- 11:41Speaker 2: four African American men. And yet we have Democrats who
- 11:46Speaker 2: have a soft on crime policies that aren't just hurting
- 11:50Speaker 2: their neighborhoods that I mentioned these different spots, but it's
- 11:53Speaker 2: hurting people in Texas as well. And almost every House
- 11:57Speaker 2: Democrat voted against the Republican efforts to stop the DC
- 12:02Speaker 2: Week on Crime bill, which specifically would have reduced carjacking penalties.
- 12:08Speaker 2: This is something that the Democrats, I mean they voted
- 12:12Speaker 2: for its. Aldred for example, voted with the Dems on
- 12:15Speaker 2: this one. It's shocking to me.
- 12:17Speaker 3: Well, listen, crime is out of control in this country,
- 12:20Speaker 3: and it's an issue that has people understandably very concerned.
- 12:24Speaker 3: I watched tonight the video of the liberal activist in
- 12:29Speaker 3: New York at four the morning being stabbed to death
- 12:32Speaker 3: on the streets of New York by a guy that
- 12:34Speaker 3: certainly appears deranged.
- 12:35Speaker 4: It was horrific to watch.
- 12:38Speaker 3: You're right, the news of the left wing journalist in
- 12:41Speaker 3: Philadelphia who was shot. I think seven times in his
- 12:44Speaker 3: own home and killed in the past few days. And
- 12:47Speaker 3: Henry Quaar. Look, Henry Quayar is a Democrat congressman from Texas.
- 12:51Speaker 3: I know Henry well. Henry represents Laredo up to San Antonio.
- 12:54Speaker 3: Henry is the most conservative of the Texas Democrats.
- 12:58Speaker 1: I worked hand in.
- 13:00Speaker 3: Hand with Henry, for example, on the Texas Bridges. We've
- 13:04Speaker 3: talked on this podcast before about four bridges from Texas
- 13:08Speaker 3: to Mexico that Henry and I teamed up in and
- 13:10Speaker 3: won big legislative victories to build new bridges to Mexico
- 13:14Speaker 3: for legal commerce, to expand bridges. Henry, as I said,
- 13:18Speaker 3: is by far the most conservative of the Texas Democrats.
- 13:21Speaker 1: Well, in the.
- 13:22Speaker 3: Last couple of days, Henry was coming to his apartment
- 13:25Speaker 3: in DC. It was nine thirty at night and he
- 13:27Speaker 3: was getting out of his car and it was carjacked.
- 13:29Speaker 3: He was carjacked by four individuals. They put a gun
- 13:31Speaker 3: in his face, they stole the car, they stole his luggage.
- 13:35Speaker 3: Presumably I haven't spoken to Henry since it happened, but
- 13:38Speaker 3: you have to assume that with a gun in his face,
- 13:40Speaker 3: he was afraid for his life. I mean, that is frightening.
- 13:43Speaker 3: My understanding is Henry lives at an apartment building where
- 13:48Speaker 3: there were multiple members of Congress who lived there. That
- 13:51Speaker 3: there are apparently multiple members of congressional leadership who live there,
- 13:55Speaker 3: which means there are a lot of Capitol police around there.
- 13:57Speaker 3: And at nine to thirty at night, he was carjacked
- 14:00Speaker 3: on the streets of DC, and then that reflects the
- 14:04Speaker 3: crime wave that is sweeping this country. Now, the DC
- 14:08Speaker 3: City Council, which is populated by left wing Democrats, they
- 14:12Speaker 3: voted to lower the penalties for violent crimes, including carjackings.
- 14:16Speaker 3: In particular, they voted to lower the sentence from twenty
- 14:24Speaker 3: one years to seven years, and they voted to lower
- 14:27Speaker 3: the sentence from forty years if armed to fifteen years.
- 14:31Speaker 3: And under the revised code, carjacking is now divided into
- 14:36Speaker 3: three gradations dependent on severity, with the lowest penalties for
- 14:40Speaker 3: an unarmed defense ranging from four to eighteen years and
- 14:44Speaker 3: the highest penalties from an armed defense ranging from twelve
- 14:48Speaker 3: to twenty four years. Now in the Congress, thankfully, the
- 14:51Speaker 3: Congress has the ability to rescind any legislation in the
- 14:55Speaker 3: District of Columbia. The reason for that is the Constitution
- 14:58Speaker 3: gives Congress total authority over DC. Unlike a state. We
- 15:02Speaker 3: can't rescind laws in Texas or any other state. But
- 15:05Speaker 3: d C is a federal district in Congress has plenary
- 15:08Speaker 3: authority over it. And so in Congress we voted to
- 15:11Speaker 3: rescind these softened crime laws that lessen the penalties for
- 15:14Speaker 3: violent crimes. And the results are horrific, as we're seeing carjacking, murders,
- 15:22Speaker 3: crime rates skyrocketing in d C and all across the country.
- 15:26Speaker 2: You also have the White House, who was asked about
- 15:29Speaker 2: part of this, and I want to play that for everybody.
- 15:31Speaker 2: Take a listen.
- 15:33Speaker 5: If a member of Congress is not safe on the
- 15:36Speaker 5: streets of the nation's capital, who is.
- 15:39Speaker 6: Look, we're grateful and relieved that the congressman is unharmed.
- 15:44Speaker 6: We understand what communities are going through across the country,
- 15:48Speaker 6: not just in DC. That's why the President took action
- 15:51Speaker 6: very early on in his administration to get the American
- 15:54Speaker 6: Rescue Plan done without the help of Republicans. That's why
- 15:57Speaker 6: every time he puts forward his budget, make sure there
- 16:00Speaker 6: are billions of dollars to deal with crime.
- 16:02Speaker 4: That's just a fact.
- 16:03Speaker 6: All you got to look is what the president has
- 16:05Speaker 6: been able to do this past two years. There's always
- 16:08Speaker 6: going to be work, more work to be done, But
- 16:10Speaker 6: the fact is the president has taken action.
- 16:13Speaker 2: He hasn't taken action, He's done the opposite of that.
- 16:16Speaker 1: She didn't have an answer to that. Holy crap.
- 16:19Speaker 3: If a Democrat congressman is getting carjacked on the streets
- 16:22Speaker 3: of DC at nine thirty pm, what the heck is
- 16:25Speaker 3: the answer? And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not
- 16:27Speaker 3: going to answer that. And what was her answer? Well,
- 16:30Speaker 3: you know, Joe Biden spending a ton of money, mind you,
- 16:33Speaker 3: not actually putting criminals in jail, not supporting police, not
- 16:36Speaker 3: doing anything to stop crime. But he's shoveling a whole
- 16:39Speaker 3: lot of cash at Democrat special interest groups. He's shoveling
- 16:43Speaker 3: a whole lot of cash at deficit spending that's causing
- 16:46Speaker 3: rampant inflation. That is her answer. It's an utter non sequitur.
- 16:50Speaker 3: And by the way, it's not just Henry quaar Angie Craig,
- 16:53Speaker 3: who is a Democrat Member of Congress from Minnesota, was
- 16:56Speaker 3: assaulted in the apartment of her DC her DC apartment
- 17:01Speaker 3: in February of this year.
- 17:03Speaker 1: And this is a.
- 17:04Speaker 3: Pattern that is happening over and over and over again.
- 17:08Speaker 3: Let me give you some stats. Carjackings in DC are
- 17:11Speaker 3: up one hundred and nine percent, robberies are up sixty
- 17:18Speaker 3: eight percent, theft is up twenty two percent, homicides are
- 17:24Speaker 3: up thirty eight percent, and the city is on pace
- 17:28Speaker 3: for the deadliest year in two decades. Not only that,
- 17:33Speaker 3: nine of the top ten cities with the highest homicide
- 17:35Speaker 3: rights are run by Democrats. Twenty seven of the top
- 17:39Speaker 3: thirty cities with the highest murder rates are run by Democrats.
- 17:44Speaker 3: This is a pattern, and you're saying Kareem John Pierre
- 17:47Speaker 3: and the Biden White House utterly dodging responsibilities for their
- 17:53Speaker 3: soft on crime policies that are endangering people all across
- 17:57Speaker 3: the country.
- 17:58Speaker 2: One to ask question for you, will Democrats move on this?
- 18:01Speaker 2: Because even the White House Presidenttery was asked a question
- 18:04Speaker 2: of follow up where she could have kind of gotten
- 18:06Speaker 2: a redo. I got to play it. It's too good,
- 18:08Speaker 2: not too If.
- 18:10Speaker 5: President Biden's policies are helping bring crime down, would he
- 18:14Speaker 5: be comfortable with somebody borrowing his corvette and parking it
- 18:17Speaker 5: on the street overnight in Southeast DC.
- 18:19Speaker 6: I'm not gonna get into hypotheticals. I'm just gonna get
- 18:22Speaker 6: into the facts about what this president has done.
- 18:24Speaker 4: In this president, I mean, she's still screwed it up.
- 18:27Speaker 3: Look, of course not nobody. Would you park your corvette
- 18:31Speaker 3: on the street. It's gonna get robbed, it's gonna get
- 18:33Speaker 3: broken into, it's gonna get keyed, it's gonna get vandalized.
- 18:36Speaker 3: She can't answer that question, and so you know what
- 18:38Speaker 3: she's counting on. Look, that was a question from Fox News,
- 18:43Speaker 3: So Fox'll cover it. Ben, you worked for years at CNN.
- 18:48Speaker 3: Did CNN cover that exchange?
- 18:49Speaker 7: Hell?
- 18:50Speaker 3: No, MSNBC, no, ABC, NBCCBS, Nope.
- 18:56Speaker 1: They know that.
- 18:57Speaker 3: The corporate media, they are the puppets for the administration.
- 19:02Speaker 3: They are the propagandists for the administration. They will repeat
- 19:06Speaker 3: the regime line. And so look, any sane person would
- 19:12Speaker 3: say no to the question would you be happy with
- 19:14Speaker 3: your your classic corvette parked on the streets of DC?
- 19:19Speaker 3: Of course not, because crime is out of control and
- 19:24Speaker 3: the problem is Look, let me underscore that again. When
- 19:29Speaker 3: the DC City Council looked at skyrocketing crime rates and said,
- 19:32Speaker 3: you know what, the answer here is, let's lower the
- 19:34Speaker 3: penalties on violent crime. That's the best solution. We've got
- 19:37Speaker 3: too many murderers, too many murders, too many carjackings. Let's
- 19:41Speaker 3: send people to jail for shorter times for murder and carjacking.
- 19:45Speaker 3: That's a great idea. In Congress, thankfully we overturn that.
- 19:49Speaker 3: In the House. Every single House Democrat except two, the
- 19:56Speaker 3: Saint DII Gonzalez, a Texan and Henry quay are at Ti, Texan,
- 20:00Speaker 3: who was just carjacked in the last forty eight hours,
- 20:03Speaker 3: are the only two who voted no. That means every
- 20:06Speaker 3: other House Democrat, if you can think of a House Democrat,
- 20:09Speaker 3: they voted in favor of lessening the penalties on carjackers
- 20:14Speaker 3: and on murderers. Why do you think crime is out
- 20:17Speaker 3: of control?
- 20:17Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a Democratic party and this is certainly going
- 20:20Speaker 2: to be an issue with the presidential election.
- 20:22Speaker 3: Dark for Ben ben hold On. Before we wrap up,
- 20:24Speaker 3: I want to ask you a final question.
- 20:26Speaker 1: I'm ready.
- 20:27Speaker 3: If you're standing by a doorway and you see a
- 20:29Speaker 3: little red box that is three inches by four inches
- 20:33Speaker 3: and it says the word fire on it and it
- 20:35Speaker 3: says pull this for the fire alarm. My question to
- 20:39Speaker 3: you is is that a doorknob.
- 20:42Speaker 2: That is not a doorknob, and that is not a
- 20:44Speaker 2: way to exit the building.
- 20:45Speaker 1: But how do you know, how do you know? Ben?
- 20:48Speaker 4: Seriously?
- 20:48Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's not like.
- 20:50Speaker 2: That insurrectionism one oh one, right, Like, don't you immediately
- 20:54Speaker 2: lock that person up forever?
- 20:55Speaker 3: Well, let me ask you this. It's not like you
- 20:58Speaker 3: were a high school principal. It's not like you were
- 21:01Speaker 3: a high school principal in a high school that had
- 21:02Speaker 3: fire alarms. It's not like you were a high school
- 21:04Speaker 3: principal in a high school that had fire alarms, that
- 21:06Speaker 3: had a policy that said, if you a student pulls
- 21:10Speaker 3: the fire alarm, you will be expelled. Jamal Bowman, the
- 21:14Speaker 3: Democrat congressman, was a principal at a high school that
- 21:17Speaker 3: had a policy that if you, Ben Ferguson, a student
- 21:20Speaker 3: in his high school, pulled the fire alarm, you would
- 21:22Speaker 3: be expelled. And yet what did Jamal Bowman do, Oh,
- 21:25Speaker 3: I'm gonna pull the fire alarm because I want to
- 21:27Speaker 3: stop the Republican vote. And why is it? His claim?
- 21:32Speaker 3: If you believe him, his defense is, I'm dumber than
- 21:36Speaker 3: a box of rocks, and I think a fire alarm
- 21:38Speaker 3: is a doorknob. That is his defense. And that's the
- 21:42Speaker 3: best interpretation he can hope for.
- 21:44Speaker 2: By the way, I have to ask now, because you
- 21:45Speaker 2: brought it up, if a Republican would have done that,
- 21:48Speaker 2: how fast would they have been kicked out of Congress?
- 21:51Speaker 2: And would they have a mug shot at this point?
- 21:54Speaker 3: To be honest, I don't think they'd be kicked out
- 21:57Speaker 3: of Congress, but I think they might have a mug shot.
- 21:59Speaker 3: And my guess is, look, kicking people out of Congress
- 22:04Speaker 3: is pretty severe. My guess is the votes won't be
- 22:07Speaker 3: there for that. My prediction is they will censure him.
- 22:10Speaker 3: I think the votes will be there for censuring him.
- 22:13Speaker 3: But it is a criminal offense in the district of
- 22:15Speaker 3: Columbia to pull a fire alarm fraudulently, and he is
- 22:18Speaker 3: on video doing that, But he is counting on the
- 22:22Speaker 3: corporate media to ignore the fact that he was willing
- 22:25Speaker 3: to pull a fire alarm to try to stop the
- 22:28Speaker 3: Congress from voting on a provision that he didn't like, which,
- 22:31Speaker 3: mind you, was a provision to fund the government, and
- 22:33Speaker 3: he wanted to force a government shut down, so he
- 22:35Speaker 3: pulled a fire alarm to cause it to happen. But again,
- 22:39Speaker 3: he knew the corporate media would cover for him.
- 22:41Speaker 1: And they're doing it right now as before.
- 22:44Speaker 2: If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
- 22:46Speaker 2: on this topic, you can go back and dow the
- 22:49Speaker 2: podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
- 22:52Speaker 2: I want to get back to the big story number
- 22:55Speaker 2: three of the week. You may have missed, Senaer. You're
- 22:58Speaker 2: gonna love this. The t shirts the Texas Use Summit
- 23:01Speaker 2: are don't tread on Me, which is awesome. And our
- 23:05Speaker 2: next question is coming from someone that has that T
- 23:07Speaker 2: shirt and I love it. Well done.
- 23:08Speaker 7: Hello, Senator Cruz. My name is Jenna. I go to
- 23:11Speaker 7: U of H here and I work at a tax
- 23:14Speaker 7: from as a tax consultant, and the tax deadline is
- 23:17Speaker 7: coming up October eighteenth, and I was wondering how the
- 23:20Speaker 7: government shutdown is going to affect the IRS and the
- 23:24Speaker 7: accounting industry regarding that deadline that's coming up, and if
- 23:27Speaker 7: you could explain kind of what's going to have.
- 23:30Speaker 3: Yeah, look, that's a very good question, and I expect
- 23:34Speaker 3: that if the shutdown goes long and it could easily
- 23:36Speaker 3: go a month. The last one was thirty five days
- 23:39Speaker 3: and twenty nineteen, the Schumer shutdown, it could easily go
- 23:43Speaker 3: a month. What it would mean as a practical matter,
- 23:46Speaker 3: is that much of the manpower at the IRS that
- 23:49Speaker 3: would be available to assist you, that would be available
- 23:52Speaker 3: to process returns, that would be available to answer questions,
- 23:56Speaker 3: much of that man power is not going to be there.
- 23:59Speaker 3: They will keep essential workers, and it's up to eat
- 24:01Speaker 3: each agency to decide who is essential. But things like
- 24:06Speaker 3: customer service almost always get deemed non essential, and you
- 24:11Speaker 3: end up with a significantly reduced workforce.
- 24:13Speaker 1: And so you're.
- 24:15Speaker 3: Working at a private firm, that that's going to mean
- 24:18Speaker 3: that your clients are going to need your advice more
- 24:21Speaker 3: significantly because the IRS is going to be less available
- 24:25Speaker 3: to be responsive, even less than they normally are.
- 24:29Speaker 2: Let's take a question from over here.
- 24:31Speaker 7: Hi, Senator Cruz, my name is Helen and I'm from
- 24:34Speaker 7: the Woodlands. My question to you is are you in
- 24:37Speaker 7: favor of the age and term limits to be elected
- 24:40Speaker 7: for Senate and Congress?
- 24:42Speaker 3: Thank you, Helen, Thank you for that question. So let
- 24:46Speaker 3: me break them down one at a time. You asked
- 24:48Speaker 3: about age limits and term limits. On age limits, the
- 24:52Speaker 3: only age limit we have for the Senate is the Constitution.
- 24:55Speaker 1: So the Constitution.
- 24:56Speaker 3: Provides that you have to be twenty five years old
- 24:59Speaker 3: to be elected to the House Representatives. You have to
- 25:01Speaker 3: be thirty years old to be elected to the Senate,
- 25:04Speaker 3: and you have to be thirty five years old to
- 25:06Speaker 3: be elected president. Other than that, there are currently no
- 25:09Speaker 3: limits when it comes to serving in federal elected office,
- 25:13Speaker 3: and it's one of the reasons why you see so
- 25:15Speaker 3: many people in the Senate who are one hundred and
- 25:17Speaker 3: forty two years old. I have joked, if you ever
- 25:21Speaker 3: want to feel young, come work in the US Senate,
- 25:24Speaker 3: because the median age is such that I have colleagues
- 25:28Speaker 3: reminiscing about Eisenhower. I mean, it's you know, I feel
- 25:32Speaker 3: like a sprightly young lad in the body in which
- 25:35Speaker 3: I serve. Term limits is something that I emphatically support,
- 25:42Speaker 3: and so I have repeatedly introduced in the Senate a
- 25:47Speaker 3: constitutional amendment to mandate term limits, to limit senators, each
- 25:51Speaker 3: senator to two terms, to limit each House member to
- 25:54Speaker 3: three terms.
- 25:56Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting.
- 25:56Speaker 3: Term limits was something I supported before I got to
- 26:00Speaker 3: the Senate, but having seen this place firsthand, now I
- 26:03Speaker 3: support it a thousand times more because this place is
- 26:08Speaker 3: the swamp. It is corrupt, and the people who are
- 26:10Speaker 3: here a long time are the worst. You get drawn
- 26:14Speaker 3: in and corrupted by the swamp. And it's both parties. Look,
- 26:17Speaker 3: the Democrats are bad, but for much of this spending
- 26:20Speaker 3: that is bankrupting the country, we have a uniparty. We
- 26:24Speaker 3: have Republican career politicians who jump in bed with the
- 26:27Speaker 3: Democrats and eagerly spend trillions of dollars. And so term
- 26:32Speaker 3: limits would be a major step to reducing that power
- 26:37Speaker 3: and reducing that corruption. And it's an amazing thing. If
- 26:40Speaker 3: you look at term limits nationally, over seventy percent of
- 26:44Speaker 3: American support term limits. That's true among Republicans, among Democrats,
- 26:48Speaker 3: and among independents. You see massive majorities supporting term limits.
- 26:53Speaker 3: The one group that doesn't is career politicians. In Washington,
- 26:58Speaker 3: in the Senate, I have zero Democrats who support my
- 27:01Speaker 3: term limits amendment.
- 27:02Speaker 1: Every one of the Democrats is opposed to it.
- 27:05Speaker 3: And I've chaired I used to be chairman of the
- 27:08Speaker 3: Constitution's Subcommittee, the Senate Judiciary Committee. I chaired a hearing
- 27:12Speaker 3: on term limits, brought in witnesses to talk about term limits.
- 27:16Speaker 3: And the reality is in the Senate, the young guys
- 27:20Speaker 3: support my term limits amendments, and none of the longtime
- 27:24Speaker 3: career politicians do.
- 27:25Speaker 1: And that's why neither.
- 27:27Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer nor Mitch McConnell wants term limits to get
- 27:30Speaker 3: a vote on the Senate floor because they oppose it
- 27:33Speaker 3: that much. So I've been fighting, but I have not
- 27:35Speaker 3: been able to get it on the floor because Schumer
- 27:38Speaker 3: and McConnell control what gets on the floor.
- 27:41Speaker 1: Let's get a question on this set over here.
- 27:43Speaker 8: How do you My name is Chad. I' miss sophomore
- 27:46Speaker 8: in Houston, and I wanted to ask how Congress can
- 27:49Speaker 8: get back some tenth moment rights to the Satan people
- 27:51Speaker 8: after events like nine to eleven and COVID have taken
- 27:54Speaker 8: it away and given it to the federal government.
- 27:57Speaker 3: Look, that is a fantastic question if you look at
- 28:02Speaker 3: the Bill of Rights and you asked about the tenth Amendment.
- 28:05Speaker 3: When I was in college, I wrote my senior thesis
- 28:07Speaker 3: on the ninth and tenth Amendments to the Constitution.
- 28:10Speaker 1: And I'll tell you a little bit.
- 28:11Speaker 3: Of the history of why they're written, and then I
- 28:14Speaker 3: will get straight to your question. But originally the Constitution
- 28:18Speaker 3: was written, there was no Bill of Rights.
- 28:20Speaker 1: It was just the Constitution itself.
- 28:21Speaker 3: And then there was a debate over whether to ratify
- 28:24Speaker 3: the Constitution, and the two groups there were the federalists
- 28:27Speaker 3: and the anti federalists. And the federalists were advocating, the
- 28:30Speaker 3: Constitution's a good idea, we should ratify it, we should
- 28:33Speaker 3: have it be the organic document forming our government. The
- 28:36Speaker 3: anti federalists, we're arguing against it. And one of the
- 28:39Speaker 3: big arguments the anti federalists had is they said, well,
- 28:42Speaker 3: there's no bill of rights. This is a flawed document
- 28:45Speaker 3: because there's no provision in it protecting our fundamental liberties.
- 28:49Speaker 1: Now, the federalists came.
- 28:50Speaker 3: Back and they said, no, no, no, we don't need a
- 28:53Speaker 3: bill of rights. And the reason the federalists gave is
- 28:56Speaker 3: they said, this is a government of enumerated powers.
- 28:59Speaker 1: If you look at Article one, section.
- 29:01Speaker 3: Eight of the Constitution, Article one establishes the Congress the
- 29:04Speaker 3: legislative function, an Article one, section eight specifies it enumerates
- 29:10Speaker 3: eighteen specific powers that Congress has. And the argument the
- 29:14Speaker 3: federalists said is, look, we don't need to say that
- 29:19Speaker 3: the federal government cannot violate your free speech, cannot violate
- 29:23Speaker 3: your religious liberty, cannot violate your right to keep in
- 29:25Speaker 3: bear arms, because there's nothing in the enumerated powers that
- 29:29Speaker 3: gives the federal government the power to violate those rights.
- 29:33Speaker 3: And so we've already done that by limiting the federal
- 29:36Speaker 3: government's authority initially. Now, the anti federalists came back and
- 29:41Speaker 3: they had lots of arguments, one of which was, well,
- 29:44Speaker 3: there's nothing to stop them from violating those rights within
- 29:48Speaker 3: the enumerated power.
- 29:49Speaker 1: So, for example, one of the enumerated.
- 29:51Speaker 3: Powers is the power to create and maintain post offices.
- 29:56Speaker 3: Under the original Constitution, without a Bill of rights, a government,
- 30:00Speaker 3: it could say, the Biden administration will say, we will
- 30:03Speaker 3: only transport letters from Democrats all Republicans. We've decided we
- 30:08Speaker 3: don't want Republicans speaking anymore, so we won't transfer there.
- 30:13Speaker 3: We won't transport their letters. Now, if the government tried
- 30:16Speaker 3: to do that today, that would obviously be an unconstitutional
- 30:19Speaker 3: violation of free speech. Without a Bill of rights, it
- 30:23Speaker 3: would be permissible. I think the anti federalist won that debate.
- 30:27Speaker 3: So we now have a Bill of rights. The first
- 30:29Speaker 3: ten amendments to the Constitution are the Bill of Rights,
- 30:33Speaker 3: and the first eight are protecting specific rights, and then
- 30:40Speaker 3: amendments nine to ten both say Amendment nine says the
- 30:46Speaker 3: enumeration of certain rights in the Bill of Rights shall
- 30:49Speaker 3: not be construed to deny or to disparage other rights.
- 30:53Speaker 1: Retained by the people.
- 30:54Speaker 3: The Tenth Amendment says the powers not given to the
- 30:57Speaker 3: federal government are reserved to the states and to the people. Basically,
- 31:04Speaker 3: the ninth and tenth Amendments restate that the Constitution is
- 31:08Speaker 3: a constitution of enumerated powers. In other words, they say,
- 31:12Speaker 3: even though we just listed these eight Bill of Rights,
- 31:15Speaker 3: we agree that the federal government probably couldn't have done
- 31:17Speaker 3: any of this anyway, but we want Belton suspenders.
- 31:21Speaker 1: And so the question.
- 31:23Speaker 3: I think the Tenth Amendment solves an enormous number of
- 31:26Speaker 3: problems in our country. I think federalism having states decide,
- 31:31Speaker 3: and I would actually advise you to take a look
- 31:34Speaker 3: at a center at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. It's
- 31:37Speaker 3: called the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies. I started it.
- 31:40Speaker 3: I was the first director, the first leader of the
- 31:43Speaker 3: Center for Tenth Amendment Studies at TPPF, and it's continued
- 31:48Speaker 3: and is ongoing. I agree that at we should put
- 31:53Speaker 3: as much decision making, as much authority as possible at
- 31:57Speaker 3: the state level, or even better at the local level,
- 32:00Speaker 3: because it's more likely to meet the needs of the
- 32:03Speaker 3: people that are being affected, and it's also more accountable.
- 32:06Speaker 3: You the citizen, are much more able to express your
- 32:10Speaker 3: views and hold accountable local officials and state officials than
- 32:14Speaker 3: some bureaucrat in a windowless office in Washington.
- 32:17Speaker 5: D C.
- 32:18Speaker 2: Let's get a couple more questions in here on this side.
- 32:20Speaker 9: Go ahead, Hello, Senator Cruz. My name is Mary melvied.
- 32:25Speaker 9: I am eighteen and from Magnolia, Texas. It appears that
- 32:32Speaker 9: Democrats have control of the elections illegally through mules and
- 32:37Speaker 9: in counting ballots. How is our vote even going to matter?
- 32:42Speaker 9: Is there a plate a plan in place for actually
- 32:45Speaker 9: having our votes count?
- 32:48Speaker 1: Well? Mary, thank you for that question. It's a hugely
- 32:51Speaker 1: important question.
- 32:52Speaker 3: You were right that voter fraud is a real problem,
- 32:55Speaker 3: and it is a persistent problem. It's a problem that
- 32:59Speaker 3: has been round since the dawn of time, since the
- 33:02Speaker 3: very first elections. I'm convinced that when the caveman sat
- 33:06Speaker 3: got together to vote on who was going to be
- 33:08Speaker 3: Grand Poobah.
- 33:10Speaker 1: Somebody stuffed the ballot box.
- 33:11Speaker 3: That's just human nature that we have crooks, and crooks
- 33:15Speaker 3: try to steal things. So we need to fight against
- 33:20Speaker 3: voter fraud. We need to fight to preserve voter integrity. Now,
- 33:24Speaker 3: the good news is we're in Texas, and Texas the
- 33:28Speaker 3: Texas Legislature has passed legislation, strong legislation designed to prevent
- 33:34Speaker 3: voter fraud. It's not perfect, it still exists, but we
- 33:37Speaker 3: have tools in place to prevent voter fraud. There are
- 33:40Speaker 3: things like requiring photo ID, which we do in Texas,
- 33:44Speaker 3: that reduces fraud. There are things like prohibiting ballot harvesting,
- 33:48Speaker 3: prohibiting paid political operatives from handling someone else's ballot that
- 33:53Speaker 3: reduces voter fraud significantly. Ballot harvesting invites voter fraud, things
- 33:59Speaker 3: like limiting mail in ballots in Texas. We do so
- 34:02Speaker 3: only unlimited circumstances, typically seniors or people with significant disabilities,
- 34:07Speaker 3: but for the vast majority of Texans. The way you
- 34:09Speaker 3: vote as you go vote in person. We have a
- 34:12Speaker 3: two week period of early voting, so it's actually pretty
- 34:14Speaker 3: easy to vote, but you vote in person. In person
- 34:17Speaker 3: voting reduces the chances of voter fraud. I think we
- 34:21Speaker 3: need to be vigilant fighting against voter fraud. I've spent
- 34:25Speaker 3: twenty plus years fighting against voter fraud at the same time,
- 34:30Speaker 3: if you look nationally, they're blue states, they're purple states
- 34:34Speaker 3: that they're not going to pass legislation to protect election
- 34:36Speaker 3: integrity because the Democrats have decided they support voter fraud.
- 34:41Speaker 1: It helps them, and it's the way the world's changed.
- 34:44Speaker 3: Ten years ago, there were Democrats who would work with
- 34:47Speaker 3: you on something like photo ID. There are none today
- 34:50Speaker 3: because they've decided voter fraud is good for them. In
- 34:55Speaker 3: blue states and purple states, they're not going to change
- 34:58Speaker 3: their laws to stop voter fraud. The good news historically,
- 35:02Speaker 3: voter fraud typically only matters at the margins.
- 35:05Speaker 1: It matters in a close election.
- 35:08Speaker 3: So the answer is, in those blue states and purple states,
- 35:12Speaker 3: we got to win by a big enough margin.
- 35:14Speaker 1: They can't steal the race from us.
- 35:16Speaker 3: Now that's not fair, it's frustrating, But the alternative is
- 35:21Speaker 3: give up on our country. And I got to tell
- 35:22Speaker 3: you there are a lot of Democrats, that a lot
- 35:24Speaker 3: of people of the corporate media that want all of
- 35:27Speaker 3: us to give up on our country. They want conservatives
- 35:30Speaker 3: to say, well, voter fraud is still there.
- 35:33Speaker 1: So I'm not going to vote to hell with it.
- 35:35Speaker 3: And I'll tell you what if we do that that
- 35:38Speaker 3: becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Then our country truly is lost.
- 35:44Speaker 3: And I'll point as a moment of encouragement, look no
- 35:47Speaker 3: further than the state of Virginia. Virginia went for Joe
- 35:53Speaker 3: Biden by ten points. Virginia has been blue for the
- 35:56Speaker 3: past decade. Biden won Virginia by ten points. One year later,
- 36:00Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, Glen Youngkin, who's a good friend
- 36:03Speaker 3: of mine, I campaigned with Glenn Youngkin all over Virginia.
- 36:06Speaker 3: Spent two days barnstorming the state of Virginia with Glenn.
- 36:11Speaker 3: One year after Biden was elected, Glen Youngkin was elected
- 36:14Speaker 3: as a Republican in Virginia. Now, Virginia had not changed
- 36:18Speaker 3: a single voter integrity law. They had the same lousy
- 36:21Speaker 3: election laws they had the year before.
- 36:24Speaker 1: But a whole bunch of moms, moms.
- 36:27Speaker 3: Who had voted for Joe Biden, got ticked off at
- 36:30Speaker 3: what the schools were doing to our kids, and they
- 36:32Speaker 3: flipped over and voted Republican. That gives us a roadmap
- 36:36Speaker 3: to what we can and I think what we have to.
- 36:38Speaker 1: Do is in this next election.
- 36:42Speaker 2: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Sentner
- 36:46Speaker 2: Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
- 36:48Speaker 2: with my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast
- 36:51Speaker 2: every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
- 36:53Speaker 2: day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
- 36:55Speaker 2: have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts,
- 36:58Speaker 2: and we will see you back here on Monday morning.